Thoughts from Nicole McDermott

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Month: January 2016

At school the other morning, I arrived to a card on my desk that reminded me to “Breathe” because “we are doing hard things.” Definitely the right words at the right time for me, and they also made me laugh because I thought, “This is what happens when your colleagues and boss follow your blog. They quote it back to you.” (My boss had written me an email with similar sentiment a few days before I got that card.)

It was funny timing because it was the same week when I was thinking of updating my Doing Hard Things piece, which was definitely one of the most popular blog posts I wrote last year (included below). When I wrote that in September, I was on Day 29 of the hard thing I started in August, and I was Day 64 of the first hard thing I started earlier in the summer. A lot of people wanted to know what my hard things were when the post originally came out. I shared with some people about the second thing, but not the first. The first, as I mentioned then, was kind of a dumb thing (and it definitely still is dumb), but it was an important thing for me. It was something I needed to do, and I knew it was best for me to keep doing it so I did. (Yay me! Yay 180 days!)

The second hard thing is also something good for me but in a different way. It’s running every day, and I recently hit Day 100 of that! It has not been consecutive for a variety of reasons, but I am very proud of my one hundred days. (One the day I am posting this, I am up to 111 days!) Most of the time I get up early and I jog outside before I start my day, but sometimes I end up jogging outside in the afternoon or in the evening on my treadmill. For me, part of accomplishing this hard thing has been prioritizing time for it.

But, back to my own words being quoted back to me. So, yeah, we’re doing hard things at school, and it’s scary, and worrisome, and stressful. And that’s how hard things often go. My personal hard things weren’t really stressful or worrisome, but they were, each in their own way, scary. It’s scary to stop doing something, to leave something behind because you know that’s what’s best for you. It’s scary to start something new. It’s scary to keep raising the bar, to keep making it harder. And, at school, it’s scary – even as part of a team – to be working on something big, something with a lot of unknowns, something with a lot of moving parts. I simply have to keep remembering (and it’s nice when others around me remind me):

I am doing hard things.

We are doing hard things.

Thanks, Barn Owl Primitives, for the many positive messages they offer; this is simply one of many! And, always, thanks to my friends, the Giordanos, who radiate this idea in all that they do. It was in their home about a year ago that I first saw the sign. We now have one at school, and we’ll get a second one as soon as we finish the hard thing we’re in the middle of doing right now. 🙂

“I can do hard things” has become a new mantra for me. Over the summer, I did something that was hard for me for a day. After that day was over, I did it for another day. And then another. And not too long later, I realized I had been doing it for a month.

And now I’ve been doing that same hard thing (which does not feel quite as hard as it once did) for sixty-four days.

It felt really hard for me to do. And it was.

But, I can do hard things.

The longer it went on, although it would have been so easy at any point to break my habit, the stronger, the more liberated, the more empowered I felt.

Doing this one hard thing buoyed my sense that I could do other hard things.

So, I decided to try another hard thing.

And now I’m on Day 29 of doing that hard thing.

Yay!

Here’s an important truth about hard things: what’s hard for me may not be hard for someone else, and what’s hard for someone else may not be hard for me. Hard things are personal.

The first hard thing – the thing I haven’t done in sixty-four days – is kind-of a ridiculous thing. If you asked me what it was, I probably would not tell you. It is also kind-of an important thing – for me. And that’s what that matters. It was something I knew was good for me, something that would help move me forward and grow.

I think that’s the best kind of hard thing I could do. And it’s the reason why hard things are worth my time, attention and celebration – and why this was a good reminder that it doesn’t matter what the hard thing is, it only matters that someone is doing it.

I have a blog, which means I have an official place to tell long stories like this! Haha. I’m using “Her Voice Goes Up…” for a personal reason today – your indulgence is appreciated. 🙂

An Updated Polar Plunge Story for 2016

I tell the same story every year because I remember it very vividly. When I first got the email about the Camp Sunshine polar plunges in the fall of 2009, I dismissed the idea pretty quickly – even though there was an event in my area – thinking, “There’s no way I would ever do that.” Then a few weeks later, I was on the beach in Barbados for Thanksgiving, and I realized, “Of course, I could do that!”

I began my association with Camp Sunshine through the New England Kiwanis Family in 2000. In my friend Katie’s memory, I have volunteered there for the past seven summers for a one week-long session each year. Although I always knew that Camp Sunshine was awesome, it wasn’t until my first volunteer experience in 2009 that I truly understood the benefit of Camp Sunshine and how amazing a place, a program, a concept it really is. Camp Sunshine, on Sebago Lake in Casco, Maine, is a retreat for critically-ill children and their families. Families come from all over the country to enjoy Camp. Families attend week-long or weekend sessions and escape their day-to-day challenges for a few days. Families pay nothing to come to Camp Sunshine; this is why donations are so important. Sessions take place all year long, not only in the summer. Families can simply be together in a beautiful setting; it is an escape and a release from the stress of illness, medical worries, bills and all of the other truly unimaginable things that come with a cancer (or other serious illness) diagnosis, especially for a child.

I jumped into a freezing lake in Reston, Virginia, five times, and I raised money each winter since 2010 for Camp Sunshine. (I’ve only jumped five times – from 2011 until 2015 – because there was a snowstorm the first year in 2010 and I could not make the rescheduled date.) My fundraising total over the six years is $9,154.46 (!!), and I look forward to taking that number past the $10,000 mark in 2016.

But, here’s where my story changes. The day after the plunge last year, I told my friends that I was not sure if I would jump in 2016. They did not take that very seriously, but I kept saying that I had a feeling I would not be doing it. I was thinking of nothing when I said this; it was only a feeling.

Then six months later, in August, as my volunteer week at Camp Sunshine began, I blindly committed, without any prior discussion or thought, to run a 10K for Camp Sunshine – the Beach 2 Beacon race in Portland, Maine. Camp Sunshine gets numbers from this race each year, and the people who use those numbers get them for free in return for fundraising for Camp. My friends and I were talking about it, and I said, “Okay. I’ll do it,” and then we took a photo. And that was that. It was settled. Later that night, it came up with someone else who had run the same race the day before, and it became real.

10K-Committed!

Just as quickly as I decided in 2009 that I would jump in a frozen lake to raise money for Camp Sunshine, I decided to run (to be real, it will likely be a mix of running and walking) a 10K in August 2016 to raise money for Camp Sunshine.

I still get tears in my eyes when I think about the mom who told me at Camp Sunshine in 2014, “This is exactly what we needed after the year we had. We feel like we have it together again” or the comment from a parent in 2013: “Our lives have totally changed since our son’s diagnosis. Thanks for the opportunity to feel normal again.” Last year, a mom told us, “My son is not the leukemia kid here. He’s just a kid.”

And so, this is my story about why I am not doing the polar plunge in 2016 and why, instead, I’m going to try something new and do something hard and run a 10K for Camp Sunshine. What I know for sure is that it won’t be as hard as the challenges faced by kids diagnosed with cancer (or other critical illnesses) or even as hard as the challenges faced by parents and siblings of kids diagnosed with cancer. I can do hard things, and I’m especially willing to do so when it’s a good cause like this.
Wish me luck on August 6!!

** Some fun polar plunge weather stats:

Year 1, 2011 – air was 36 degrees and water was 32 degrees

Year 2, 2012 – air was 44

Year 3, 2013 – this one was the coldest (my hair froze when I got out!!) with the air temp at 25-30 degrees and the water at 35 degrees

Year 4, 2014 – air was 48 degrees and water was 33 degrees (with 5 inches of ice on it that had to be cut before we could jump!)! My friend RJ (a cancer survivor I met at Camp Sunshine when he was ten) plunged for the first time this year and described the water as “1000 needles going into my body.” So real.

Year 5, 2015 – air was 45 degrees and water was 33. Four inches of ice were cut before we jumped!

I will still be part of this year’s Virginia Polar Dip on February 6 – but only as a volunteer this year. If you’d like to donate specifically to someone jumping into a freezing cold lake, please look at the fundraising pages for my friend Gail or Team Mathias.

The 10K is on August 6, and I’ll have a fundraising site that I’ll share when it gets closer. The process for donating will be the same as it has been for the polar plunge.

Thank you to everyone who has generously and enthusiastically supported my Freezin’ for a Reason efforts since 2010. It is because of everyone’s kindness that my grand total is an amazing $9,154.46, and I’m very grateful. I see first-hand every summer how this money gets put to good use and know the difference it makes.